


Ships and Swans

by bbcphile



Series: Harboured and Encompassed [1]
Category: Hornblower (TV), Hornblower - C. S. Forester
Genre: Age of sail references, Characters developing feelings, M/M, Modern AU, Pre-Slash, in which I research obscure naval history, look at how far these nerd ducklings have come!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-25
Updated: 2017-10-25
Packaged: 2019-01-22 17:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12487524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcphile/pseuds/bbcphile
Summary: They've only been roommates at King's College London a few weeks, but Horatio and Will are already having adventures on the high seas .  . . or, rather, in Hyde Park's Round Pond. It's just them, a brisk January morning, and the Hotspur (their model ship).Oh, yes, and a swan.What could possibly go wrong?





	Ships and Swans

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for the prompt for Horatio and Will's roommate antics from just-a-half-boiled-egg on Tumblr! 
> 
> Thanks also to velarapproximant and girabbit for being such wonderful betas!
> 
> Also, you don't need to have read "Harboured and Encompassed" for this to make sense (it's a prequel) but it sets things in place that will be relevant later.

“Are you sure about this, Horatio?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Horatio bristled, holding his head higher to fight the urge to hunch his shoulders. “She passed our test in the sink with flying colours. Why wouldn’t we test her in more open waters?”

Will shrugged as he wrapped his red scarf around his neck more tightly and tucked the ends into his black leather jacket. “Just thought we’d wait until spring.”

Horatio forced himself not to shiver as another gust of January breeze blew through. He cursed himself for forgetting his gloves and hat. He’d just have to make do without. “Well, we can warm ourselves up with hot drinks once we’re through. My treat.” It was the least he could do to thank Will. Will’s accompanying him on this venture was far beyond his duty as a roommate.

Will put his hands in his pockets. “Ta.” He glanced at the water in front of them. “How will you get it back? The _Hotspur_ , I mean?”

A faint smile flickered across Horatio’s face. “That’s why I chose today. The wind’s picked up, so it should blow her to the shore. We don’t need a remote control, Will. We have nature on our side.”

Will raised an eyebrow, then dipped his head. “Alright.” He gestured toward the water. “Lead on.”

Horatio nodded, then surveyed the Round Pond, his forehead creased with concentration. Will had only just gotten back on his feet--er, foot? Damn it, he needed to do more research on terminology--after several days of crutches. He should find the perfect spot for them to stand to minimize Will’s discomfort. “We should start from over there, near the bench,” he said at last.

Will looked at the bench, then at Horatio, then raised an eyebrow slowly. “Why?”

Horatio glanced at Will out of the corner of his eye as he tried to come up with a reasonable excuse. “It . . . er . . . it’s more in the sun. It’ll be warmer.”

Will smiled and rolled his eyes. “It was just a small infection, Horatio. It’s good as new, now.” He patted his hand against his thigh through his dark wash jeans. “I don’t need to sit.”

Horatio forced himself not to wince at his own stupidity. Of course Will wouldn’t be slowed down by something like that. He never seemed to be in pain. Or anxious. Or afraid. It seemed ironic that the bravest man in KCL had been assigned to room with the most cowardly. He squared his shoulders and cleared his throat. “I’m glad to hear it. Let’s go, then.” Without waiting for an answer, he plowed ahead, pausing only once he reached the water’s edge, closest to the bench.

By the time Will caught up with him, he’d managed to remove the small ship from his backpack and to free it from the towels he’d wrapped around it.

“She’s beautiful,” Will said quietly. “Even without the cannons.”

Horatio ducked his head. His failure had been mortifying enough without Will needing to bring it up again. “It was an elementary miscalculation. Anyone could have neglected to account for their extra weight.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “Naturally. Jack did the same in _Master and Commander_.”

Horatio scowled as his stomach twisted. He hardly deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as Jack Aubrey. He cleared his throat. “Yes. Well . . . I . . . er . . . appreciate your help with the rigging.”

Will nodded once, a calm, controlled bob of his head. “Pleased to be of service.”

Horatio swallowed and looked back down at the ship. It was far safer to look at than Will’s steady, quiet confidence. Any day now, Will would request a new roommate and move out. It must be an intolerable burden, to go from being an officer in Her Majesty’s Navy to sharing a room with a neurotic failure who couldn’t remember to eat without prompting. “Shall we set sail?”

A faint, dry smile flickered across Will’s lips. “Aye aye. Anchors aweigh.”

Horatio nodded, then crouched down by the water’s edge to gently place their ship into the pond. They watched in silence as the wind billowed her sails and propelled her forward, ripples trailing in her wake.

For a moment, Horatio could almost feel his hands despite the cold as the pride in a job well done coursed through him.

Then, he noticed the swan.

****

“Are you sure you don’t want my coat?” Will asked again once they’d boarded the Central line tube to take them back to their dorm.

Horatio glowered. “I’m perfectly fine,” he snapped, shivering as he clutched the _Hotspur_ closer to his chest. “I’ll dry soon enough.”

“Alright,” Will said with a shrug. At least wringing out his coat and shirt had helped, even if it’d also smeared the mud and swan droppings around. And Horatio’s hair was drying more quickly now. He risked a quick glance at Horatio. An image of a particularly fluffy baby duckling floated through his mind. He hadn’t realized towel drying could do . . . that. He forced himself not to smile. The last thing either of them needed was for Horatio to think he was being laughed at.

The woman on Horatio’s right looked up from her newspaper, glanced at Horatio, wrinkled her nose, and shifted further away.

Horatio clenched his jaw more tightly.

Will frowned. He usually gave Horatio a wide berth when he’d reached the jaw clenching stage. But maybe today should be the exception. “You were lucky,” he said at last. “Swans can be vicious. A boy I knew at school got a nasty bite from one once.

Horatio rolled his eyes. “Yes, well, nothing damaged, apart from my clothes.”

Will glanced down at Horatio’s jeans with a faint smile. “We can sew up that tear.”

Horatio turned to face him, his eyebrow raised. “You have a sewing kit?”

Will shrugged. “Just a small one, but it should have what we need.” He hadn’t done mending in years, but he’d helped Mum often enough once Cathy was born that it should come back to him quickly.

Horatio nodded, then looked down at the _Hotspur_ again. His jaw began to unclench. “At least we don’t have to do any repairs on her,” he said, a hint of pride in his voice as he ran his hand across her rigging.

Will smiled as he watched Horatio’s fingers lovingly trace the rope.“She didn’t need cannons. She had you.”

Horatio scowled and ducked his head. “Hardly.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “Horatio, you saved the ship.”

Horatio rolled his eyes. “There’s no need to make it sound heroic, Will. It wasn’t. I didn’t have time for a grand strategy, or to think about the water, or the risks. I just . . . saw her come for our ship, wings flapping, and did the first thing I could think of.”

“Charging at her and screaming bloody murder,” Will said with a nod and a smile he didn’t try to hide.

Horatio huffed out a laugh. “It made sense at the time.”

“And it worked.”

Horatio rolled his eyes again. “Yes, but only after getting pummeled by her wings.”

“Taking enemy fire doesn’t make it any less of a victory.”

“It’s a bird, Will, not the _Cygne_ ,” Horatio sighed.

Will frowned. “The _Cygne_?”

Horatio nodded. “The French word for ‘swan.’ She was an _Abeille_ -class, 16-gun brig, launched in 1806. She ran aground while taking fire from the _HMS Amaranthe_. That would have been . . . 1808, I think.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “How did you remember that?”

Horatio brightened and sat up straighter. “Well, there’s a fascinating discrepancy in the historical record. According to Troude’s _Naval Battles of France_ , 1867, Captain Defresne scuttled the _Cygne_ , by fire, rather than let her fall into the hands of the British. But the _London Gazette_ published an account from the captain of the _HMS Circe_. It explains that the English, not the French, set fire to the _Cygne_. So, you see, each side reported the events differently.”

Will nodded slowly. So that’s what Horatio did in his spare time: more research. At least talking about it had cheered him up. “Who do you believe, then?”

Horatio’s forehead wrinkled and he blinked several times. “Well, the English, clearly. No self-respecting British officer would lie about his triumphs.”

Will raised an eyebrow. Horatio’s idealism wouldn't have survived three years on the HMS Daring. “Right,” he said at last.

Horatio’s enthusiasm vanished as quickly as it had come, and he stared back down at the _Hotspur_ , shoulders slightly hunched. “I didn’t defeat the swan, Will,” he said quietly. “And I’m not going to lie and say I did.”

“Right,” Will said again, sighing internally. Horatio was harder on himself than any drill sergeant at Basic could ever be. He’d run himself into the ground if he wasn’t careful. He was well on his way there, given his sleeping and eating habits. How did he forget to eat, but have perfect recall of newspaper articles about obscure ships? He’d end up having to take a leave of absence and go back to Kent at this rate.

Will blinked. Why did that bother him? It hadn’t when Bobby and the others got the boot at Basic. Was there something different about Horatio?

A strange pulling sensation started up in his chest. He rolled his shoulders, but it didn't go away. He must’ve slept on it oddly. It wasn't important. And neither was thinking about this change. Reasons didn't matter.

What mattered was figuring out how to help.

If only there were a way to combine food and naval history, maybe Horatio wouldn’t starve.

Will smiled as he remembered the slim cookbook on his bookshelf, courtesy of Victoria. “Horatio?”

“Yes?” Horatio didn’t look up.

“My sister gave me a book of recipes from the Aubrey/Maturin series before I left. I was thinking of making hard tack tomorrow. Would you like to help?”

Horatio blinked several times, then tilted his head, his forehead wrinkling. “You . . . you’d like . . . _me_ to help you bake?”

Will shrugged. “I thought it might make for a fun night in. We could always watch _Master & Commander_ together after, if you’d like. I saw the DVD on your bookshelf the other day.”

Horatio’s eyes widened and a cautious smile spread over his face. “Oh! That -- I -- er--” he cleared his throat and tried again. “Yes. That sounds . . . good.”

Will smiled back, feeling warmer than he had all day. “2pm?” Baking would be nice after his appointment with Dr. Patel that morning. It helped to have something to do with his hands.

“2pm works perfectly,” Horatio answered. “I should be able to finish my reading tonight, leaving plenty of time for our activities tomorrow.”

“Alright, then. That’s our afternoon sorted,” Will said with a smile.

“I’ll look forward to it,” Horatio said with an oddly formal nod that wouldn’t be out of place in those period dramas Cathy made him watch last year when he was stuck at home.

Will watched out of the corner of his eye as Horatio looked back down at the _Hotspur_ , his reserved expression breaking into a broad grin that made his brown eyes shine.

The pulling sensation in his chest came back full force. Will shifted in his seat and looked out the window. Horatio’s eyes and smile kept floating through his mind.

“Will? This is us.”

Will blinked. Horatio was standing up, his hand around the metal pole near his seat, and was watching him, his forehead wrinkled with concern.

Will stood up and smiled. It wouldn't do to worry Horatio. He gestured to the open door. “Lead on. I’m right behind you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Captain Collier's account in the London Gazette: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/16225/page/146
> 
> O. Troude's account in Batailles Navales de la France, p. 521: https://books.google.com/books?id=rhIR5D5quFYC
> 
> (Yes, I really did research this. I am a nerd. But I also didn't use MLA formatting for my Works Cited, because I'm rebelling against authority. ;) )


End file.
